


Carnival Dads

by allthebeautifulthings9828



Series: October Fic Fest [9]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Adoption, Carnival, Castiel and Dean Winchester are Claire Novak's Parents, Claire Ships It, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Family, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Feel-good, Ficlet Collection, Fluff, Fun, Gen, Hurt Claire, Injured Claire, M/M, One Shot, One Shot Collection, POV Dean Winchester, Parent Castiel, Parent Dean Winchester, Protective Castiel, Team Free Will, Uncle Sam, dadstiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-10
Updated: 2015-10-10
Packaged: 2018-04-25 15:59:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4967218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthebeautifulthings9828/pseuds/allthebeautifulthings9828
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few weeks shy of her eighteenth birthday, Dean and Castiel finalize the adoption of Claire Novak. Now a Winchester like the rest of them, Dean plans to spoil her in all the ways his father never spoiled him. First on the list is busting her out of the hospital after a hunting injury to take her to a carnival. Sam is still a little uncertain about all the changes in their family and Castiel is hovering with unexpected maternal instincts, but Dean is determined to be a great dad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carnival Dads

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was requested by one of my readers.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Castiel murmured in a secretive tone outside of the hospital room as he held the door closed.

Nodding most definitely, Dean leaned on the wall with his arms folded over his chest. “Absolutely. She ain’t gonna start trusting us unless we take her wants and needs into better consideration. No kid wants parents dragging her all over the place without asking what she wants once in a while. There’s a carnival in town and Claire wants to go.”

“Dean,” interrupted Sam, leaning back on the opposite wall, “I know you guys just signed the papers and stuff but that girl needs rest, not a carnival.”

“Sam’s right. Claire was just shot--”

“--Through the shoulder,” argued Dean. “It was a flesh wound. No biggie. Hell, by her age, I’d already been shot two or three times. Put hair on my chest.”

Rolling his eyes, Sam heaved an impatient sigh. “Hate to break it to you but you adopted a teenage girl, not a boy.”

“And she kicks ass, I might add,” Dean said defensively.

"Why did you adopt a girl just a few weeks away from turning eighteen?" retorted Sam, who then looked like he immediately regretted the way it sounded because they all knew he liked Claire. He pursed his mouth and backtracked. "Look, I didn't mean that. I just mean ... she's grown. You're a hunter. You're an angel. Not exactly stable dad material."

That offended Castiel for sure. Dean felt the nearly imperceptible tensing in the presence beside him, which made him smirk, knowing Sam didn't really mean it the way he sounded.

"Shut it, Sammy. Get in the spirit of things. We're going to the friggin carnival like a friggin family and we're gonna have a friggin awesome day." Dean finished it off with a dumb grin. He playfully slugged Castiel's arm. "C'mon, babe. Let's go bust our kid outta this place."

None of them spent much time analyzing the events that led to Claire getting shot through the shoulder. Angels had been in pursuit when they heard Castiel intended to adopt his vessel's human progeny, a prospect that was apparently very much against angel rules for whatever reason. Dean didn't give a shit once Castiel got him on board with the plan. What Sam would eventually come to understand is a kid needs parents no matter if they're in diapers or on the verge of adulthood. And Dean was sure as hell going to do things different than his father did with him. Claire was going to have choices. If she wanted to be a hunter, she could, but only after understanding that she was bright enough for other things. Who knew where Dean would be if he'd been made to understand how important and worthy he was? Or even Sam or Castiel for that matter?

Claire was more than overjoyed in her sullen seventeen-year-old way to see her new fathers and her new uncle packing up her things and getting her ready to go. She leaned against Castiel from her bed, looking rather like a little girl with big eyes as he passed a hand over her tangled length of blonde hair. He leaned down and murmured something, to which she peered up and nodded. Then he began helping her get dressed in such a disjointed way to preserve her modesty as well as the sling holding her wounded arm steady. All right. Dean filed that bit of information away. He understood that Claire was defining their roles moment by moment and she seemed to go to Castiel for comfort and Dean for fun. That seemed fair enough.

And although Castiel made huge strides in learning to give her affection when she wanted it, he still managed to be rather stern about keeping her arm still. "If you move your arm today, that's it for the carnival. Your health is more important. Moving an injury like this can cause irreversible dama--"

"--C'mon, I know," replied Claire with a pointed eyeroll. "I got it. It's cool, Pops."

Zipping her duffle bag somewhat disguised Dean's snicker. Somehow she'd decided - gradually, of course - that Castiel was going to be Pops and Dean was going to be Dad. She'd used the word once already when he told her the papers were signed, saying it as if testing the sound of the word in her mouth. Maybe she couldn't make herself call Castiel "Dad" because his body used to belong to her birth father - Dad. Building the new bond required a new name, he guessed. Pops sounded like a grandpa to Dean but she did like cracking jokes sometimes about Castiel's ancient age.

Claire slid out of bed, standing upright for the first time in days. She wobbled a bit and Sam's long arm shot out to provide steadying support. The younger Winchester brother had been rather dubious about the adoption but Dean thought he secretly loved the idea of having a niece. It was a lot just to get accustomed to Dean and Castiel openly dating - well, it was more like open commitment - but to add an adopted teenage girl on top of it made him think Sam simply needed time to adjust.

The hodgepodge family checked out of the hospital together. By the time they piled into the Impala, Claire emerged from her sluggishness enough to try and brush her hair and put on makeup left-handed. The process mystified Castiel, sitting beside her in the back.

"Are you trying to attract a mate?" he asked, eyes narrowed.

She lowered her eyeliner pencil. "What?"

"Darkening the rims of the eyes and adding pigment to the lips are mechanisms for female humans to signal sexual availability to males."

Through the rearview mirror, Dean spotted a feminist meltdown heating up and he cleared his throat before she laid into him. "Cas, it's not that literal," he interjected. "Chicks put on makeup because they like it. It's fashion. I'm sure Claire's not on the hunt - today at least." He winked at her through the mirror.

"Thank you," she said in an exaggerated tone. "But you could lay off calling us chicks."

Sam chortled in the front passenger seat.

"Do forgive me, Queen Claire," teased Dean with a grin. "I humbly prostrate myself at your feet."

"Don't wreck the car, old man."

Laughing to himself, Dean maneuvered the Impala through the streets easily. He found the freeway leading them out of the city. The family chatted around him as he drove but he didn't contribute much. Instead, he listened and absorbed their presence, not knowing how long the lull in the Winchester storm would last. As long as that day was concerned, they were a normal family going out to the damn carnival. Dean wasn't much for that kind of thing but it could be cool for a day. Maybe they had one of those old wooden roller coasters that he dug when he was a kid. Claire should have that experience once.

By the time they got to the corn field that had been cleared away to make room for a local annual carnival, Claire completely perked up from days in the hospital under the influence of pain medication. Dean's stomach told him it was lunchtime. As they got out of the car, he spotted a couple of food vendors immediately and made a beeline for them after buying everyone's tickets.

"We should've eaten before we got here. This is the most unhealthy food anyone could ever eat," Sam decided allowed as he followed.

"Nobody comes to carnivals for healthy food!" Dean replied in a rather exasperated tone. He slung a very careful arm around Claire's shoulders, walking between Sam and Castiel, who each looked bewildered by people enjoying themselves. "What do you want to eat, baby doll? Anything at all. You earned it, taking out that vamp the way you did."

A proud grim illuminated Claire's face. "Funnel cake."

"I don't know what that is," admitted Castiel.

She threw a sharp glance over her shoulder, her features completely opened in shock. "Really? Never?"

"I don't...." His eyes darted back-and-forth at the people surrounding them. "I don't get hungry very often, remember? Funnel cake was not something we had where I came from." It was as subtle as he was capable of being given his species but he did a good job of covering up the fact that he was alone angel surrounded by hundreds of humans having a good time.

Understanding made Claire give a slow nod. "Gotcha. Well, you're trying it. No arguing."

Four plates of fried cake buried in powdered sugar came along in short order and they sat at the end of a picnic table occupied by another family having lunch. Crowding meant a lot of families had to double up at the picnic tables provided by various food vendors. Not one of the families around them even questioned that they weren't all blood related. There were no stares of disbelief. There were no whispers. Everyone simply went about their business, a fact that completely astonished Dean as he ate his funnel cake. He'd gotten so used to lying and hiding that being taken at face value for a normal family felt so completely foreign. Perhaps it was welcome but it was still such a strange sensation that he expected it to fall apart at any moment.

Castiel hovered, of course. He made sure Claire took her pain pills immediately after she finished eating and he followed that up with making her drink half a bottle of water before she even stood. When she started to protest, he launched into a biological lecture about how the human body needed to stay well hydrated during recovery from a serious injury and she put up a hand, stopping him. It was better to pick her battles with her new father. Again, Dean found himself smiling to himself about it, realizing they were carving out their new relationship inch by inch.

The genderless angel had maternal instincts the Dean didn't expect but he found them endearing. One day after she finished rebelling against childhood, Claire would come to appreciate the way Castiel looked after her too.

Once the last empty plate got tossed in the garbage can, Claire clapped her hands together gleefully. "What do you think, boys? That swinging thing over there?" She pointed to a ride that looked like a huge boat swinging back and forth, eventually turning completely upside down. It made her grin.

"I believe the force exerted on the body on such a ride might be too much for your arm," cautioned Castiel. Even so, his eyes glinted a little bluer looking at it.

Claire grinned and patted his leg with her unhurt hand. "Oh c'mon, Pops. Try it with me."

"Yeah," agreed Dean with a grin as he pulled Castiel by the hand like Claire pulled him by the other hand. "C'mon, Pops. The girl gets what the girl wants."

"You're spoiling her, Dean."

"Yep, and it's my legal right now."

Apparently the promise of a thrill already had Sam up and far ahead of them. It took the effort of both Claire and Dean to drag Castiel along but he gave in halfway there and even smiled about it. He'd made a lot of strides toward seeing the lighter side of life after being human for a while but the stress of The Darkness had gotten to him.

They got into the ride together, Sam and Dean sitting in the row behind Castiel and Claire. As the ride began to swing, wind rippled through her blonde hair. Every now and then through that wind, Dean saw her smile begin to grow. She wasn't prone to smiling. A lot of Claire's makeup reminded Dean of himself at that age but he still hoped to change her path so she'd have more choices than he did. The smile suggested it was possible. Maybe she wouldn't feel obligated to become a hunter like he and Sam did so long ago.

"You gotta put your hands up when we really get going," Claire said to Castiel.

He looked over at her. "Put my hands up?"

"Yeah, I can't do it. You gotta."

"Oh, is it a requirement?"

Claire's laughter rang out even through the increasing squeals and hollers from other people on the ride. "No, but it makes it more fun. Just do it."

"Okay." In awkward, jerking motions, Castiel lifted his arms over his head. Other people were doing it too but that didn't stop him from glancing around like he didn't trust it. Then he chuckled on the downswing. Low at first and then more obvious, his chuckle bubbled into a bit of laughter.

"See?" Claire said. "Sometimes you just got a put your arms up eccentric, go along with the ride, and let go."

Dean put his arms up too. He closed his eyes and remembered that feeling of his stomach dropping at the will of gravity. It felt a lot like the sensation of falling in love. He was in love with the idea of having a daughter and someone with whom to raise her for a while. Yes, he smiled against the wind. Sam let out a loud whoop beside him on another downswing, closer each time to flipping upside down.

It was addicting to be normal. Dean wanted more days like that one.


End file.
